


This is what it's like when we collide

by Elisexyz



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Courtship, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Season 3B AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 21:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16542554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: “Uh, mom?” Henry calls, walking down the stairs and looking pretty damn amused by the whole thing. Well, at leastsomeoneis having fun. Regina plans to join by having a lot offunmaking a necklace out of Hook’steeth. “I think someone likes you.”“Ithink someone has a death wish,” she retorts. God, he didn’t even buy – or steal, who knows when it’s him – bouquets with coordinated colours. It’s hurting her eyes.





	This is what it's like when we collide

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: [64\. “Why should we date?” “Because we are attracted to each other.” “I am attracted to pie, but I do not feel the need to date pie.” + HookedQueen](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/179834250794/any-chance-that-i-can-get-sarcasm-prompt-n-64-for).  
>  A couple of times I hint at Neal being around… well, he’s alive. He’s always alive. Very much alive. You might find it unnecessary, but I’m telling you that it’s very necessary to my soul. So. Very alive, lots of SwanFireQueen co-parenting going on behind the scenes. Not to mention that this way there’s no CS in sight and Hook and Regina are free to ride off into the sunset u.u  
>  I sort of imagined this as set in an AU in which the Neverland arc was solved without Pan exchanging bodies with Henry, but it’s vague enough that you can make up your own setting if you like.

“I am going to murder—” As soon as the door is closed behind her and she raises her eyes on her house, Regina pauses for a moment, gaping at the monstrosity in front of her. “—him,” she completes, her voice barely above a whisper because she’s frankly too shocked to even yell.

Her whole house is covered in damn _flowers_.

She’s _so_ going to murder him.

“Uh, mom?” Henry calls, walking down the stairs and looking pretty damn amused by the whole thing. Well, at least _someone_ is having fun. Regina plans to join by having a lot of _fun_ making a necklace out of Hook’s _teeth_. “I think someone likes you.”

“ _I_ think someone has a death wish,” she retorts. God, he didn’t even buy – or steal, who knows when it’s him – bouquets with coordinated colours. It’s hurting her eyes.

“ _I_ think it’s sweet,” Henry grins, and Regina swears that she’s going to sit at a table with Emma and make sure to restrict Neal’s time with their kid, because that’s _his_ dumb face plastered right there on her son’s head and that corruption needs to stop.

She only has time to shoot him a very significative look before the doorbell rings.

She turns around, shaking her head and drawing a brief sigh in an attempt to compose herself, which turns out to be a waste of time when she opens the door to come face to face with that ridiculous pain in the ass that has been making her life a living hell lately.

“So,” Hook grins. “What do you say?”

Regina has done a lot of progress when it comes to anger management, and she even has people in her life who offer a good amount of positive reinforcement, who praise her accomplishments and recognize how far she’s come. Especially Henry, who makes all that effort worth it.

Therefore, she owes it to him and to everybody else to at least _try_ to count to ten before obliterating him. And if she loses it at four, well, she’s only human.

“I— you— what the hell?!” she yells in his face, and his grin doesn’t so much as _quiver_. Unsurprising, considering that just that morning he was reminding her of how much more _attractive_ she gets when she’s angry. “How did you even _get_ into my house?!” She should just seal it with blood magic, even if they haven’t had any major disasters in a long time and it shouldn’t be necessary.

“Lock-picking,” he explains, smugly. “Quite effective.” There’s a pause, and Regina spends it all trying to come up with the best way to knock his teeth out: magic would do the trick quickly and efficiently, but straight up hitting him in the face would be infinitely more satisfying. “So, what do you say?” he asks again.

 _Okay, deep breaths. Deep breaths, Regina_.

“ _Hook_ ,” she begins, pressing her lips together as her mouth twists into a very hysterical and very murderous smile. “ _Why,_ exactly, should we date?” she simply asks, because _that_ is what she doesn’t get.

Why is he so fixated on dating her? It’d be a major disaster, it’d be— _insane_.

“Because we are attracted to each other,” he shrugs, as if the logic were now suddenly crystal clear.

(And no, Regina is not going to argue that particular point. She still won’t date him.)

“I am attracted to pie, but I do _not_ feel the need to date pie,” she points out, drily, crossing her arms.

“Oh, come on,” Hook protests, that stupid grin still not gone – how exactly does one kill this idiot’s spirit? She’s willing to do pretty much anything short of maybe sacrificing Henry to some ancient god— _maybe_. Because the little traitor _was_ laughing at her suffering a few minutes ago.

“Just give it a chance, what do you have to lose?” he adds, his grin widening as he opens up his arms as an invitation.

“My life,” she deadpans.

That, at least, makes him frown in confusion. “Why exactly would I kill you, love?”

“Oh no,” she smiles pleasantly. “I meant that _I_ would kill _you_. And then David would throw me in jail and I’d waste my life there. Very much not worth it.”

“You know, if you keep saying stuff like that one might get the impression that you don’t like me,” he warns, back at being his irritatingly cheerful self. She wonders if setting his clothes on fire would make him drop the grin.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” he exhales, managing to pull off the ‘I hate to tell you this, love, but yeah’ look. He then takes a peak behind her, raising his hand as if to say hello. “What do you think, lad? Shouldn’t she give me a chance?”

Regina turns around to find that Henry has been watching them the whole time, very interested in the exchange.

“I don’t think I want to answer that,” he says, with a quick look at Regina’s less than benevolent expression.

“Smart boy,” she comments, turning back around to face Hook.

He puffs. “Okay, fine. I’ll just have to come up with something else,” he says, annoyed. “You are an hard one to catch.”

“I swear, you pull one more stunt like this and I will _end_ you.”

 

Of course, he doesn’t listen.

His next brilliant plan is bringing her a ridiculously big _pie_.

“You said you are attracted to them,” he points out, flashing a grin. “It’s an apple pie! And, hear, hear, it’s _not_ cursed. But if it were, don’t worry, I’d wake you up in a heartbeat, love.”

The whole thing unfortunately ends with both of them still alive and uninjured – if you don’t count how Regina’s braincells are beginning to self-destruct in frustration –, but at least she gets some good pie how of it.

 

Somehow, Hook manages to appear _everywhere_.

If she goes out for a walk, he’s coming from the opposite direction.

If she goes out for dinner with Henry, he’s eating out too, what a coincidence – and Henry, the little traitor, is now in on it, apparently, because when that happened he invited him to join their table; “Come on, eating alone is sad!” he whispered, in response to her death-glare.

If she goes to pick up Henry after an afternoon with Neal and Emma, you bet that Hook will be there because he found a way to join the family time.

At least he hasn’t broken into her house again.

 

The final straw is when she finds him out of her house, at night, performing a _serenade_. It’s late, she’s tired, he absolutely _can’t_ sing – even less than he normally would, considering that he sounds more than a little drunk –, and even Henry comes up to her with his eyes half-closed to tell her to either knock him out or say yes already so that they can all go back to sleep.

She puts on a coat and heads out of her house like she’s about to orchestrate a massacre – a murder is still not off the table, actually –, just to get the pleasure of yelling at his face instead of doing it from her window.

“Okay, _fine_ —” she says, raising her voice quite a lot to be able to top that thing that he’s trying to sell as _singing_. “ _Fine_ , you get a damn date— _one_ date, you complete moron, and let’s just hope that you get to the end of it whole.”

He stares at her in utter silence for a few moments, blinking.

“I’m not whole already,” he points out, raising his hook to show her.

It’s been a long week. It’s night. That’s her excuse, but she snorts at that, and it comes out sounding a lot like a genuine laugh.

“Ah, see? You like me!”

“I already said yes, you can stop with that crap,” she points out, regaining a more neutral expression.

“That’s not a denial, love.”

 

(Surprisingly enough, there’s no body count on their first date. Or the second. Or the— well, okay, _technically_ they ran over a squirrel on the third one, but it’s not her fault that the damn thing was playing dead in the middle of the road and Hook was being _distracting_ — Plus, magic fixed it up, it doesn’t count.

What’s all the more surprising is that by the fourth one she’s almost grateful that she said yes. Almost.)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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